Biopunk Post 2: Electric Boogaloo

In my last Biopunk post I covered the risks aspect of bio-hacking loosely, and I was not very concerned about the possible positive repercussions of bio-hacking. So I will cover that in this post. What good is bio-hacking anyway?

Well, first you have to look at the problems that they are attempting to confront. People are flawed organisms. We have diseases, and eventually we all die. This isn’t a novel concept, but it is important to the mission of bio-hackers. They want to help eliminate diseases that we have no cure for, and as a result help us avoid an early death. Aging is effectively the decay of DNA, so stopping aging would require the ability to stop the decay. I don’t want to be immortal, but I would like to live longer than a century or two. Perhaps a slowing of the decay could be presented through bio-hacking.

That’s not the most important or relevant aspect of bio-hacking though. They are much more likely to find a method that would help cure a disease. If we understand where the genetic material is that controls certain diseases we could fix them. This would be introduced slowly and carefully, and perhaps could prevent the problems that are locked within our genetic code. Tackling issues like cancer is a bit different. Right now there is no absolute cure for cancer, only treatments that have been successfully implemented. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy are two common methods. They are taxing on the body and mind. People lose their hair. Often they have to have surgery removing large sections of tissue. It’s a gruesome affair that plays havoc on the body. If a person were able to receive a series of injections or treatments that would attack cancer at the genetic level, these sad realities could be avoided.

We are currently wary of having average people able to play around with genetics. It’s indeed scary. I don’t want somebody introducing an organism by accident that destroys or partially destroys an ecosystem. If properly looked after though, having more people involved could make treatments and cures for diseases much more elegant and successful than the methods of the past. 

Future Guessing!

Since we read a book about what the future was supposed to be like, I figured that I would try my hand at it for this post. I’ll make a few guesses about what will happen with technology over the next forty to fifty years. In all likelihood this will turn out quite wrong. I will be happy in being wrong here only so long as I am not wrong about one thing. We will make progress.

Awful pun to enhance the post.

Genetics:

We all know much more about genetics than our grandparents do. If you take a high school biology course you should have some introduction into the structure of DNA. Maybe you even learned about some processes that DNA is involved in. Through more extensive analysis over the years we have been able to determine that certain problems are found on individual chromosomes. The more accurately we pinpoint genetic problems the more likely we’ll be able to solve them. Imagine being able to eliminate problems from the vain such as color-blindness or baldness to the more severe problems of spinal muscular atrophy or muscular dystrophy. Plastic surgery could become gene therapy.

Space:

I love space, and I desperately hope that within my lifetime commercial and affordable space flights will be available to us. I would love to go to Mars, and then a couple of years later return. I don’t think we’ll get much further than that in my lifetime though. We have only just reached an area beyond our solar system with Voyager 1. In a few short years the power will be completely shut off and it will be dead weight in space. For those of you wondering it reached beyond the solar system this year and has been headed in that direction since 1977. A manned flight that far out would not be a good idea with current technologies. Our bodies are made to stay here on Earth or in roughly 1 g of gravitational pull. Our senses get thrown off when we go into space. Muscles atrophy, and the body generally behaves chaotically. We would need spaceships that give us 1 g to keep us from these problems. I believe this will be the next step after commercial flights in space. Making vehicles more suitable for transport while increasing safety is the natural progression.

This is a SpaceX Merlin Engine. 

Cities:

Methods of transport will change. People won’t use as many full size cars, and eventually cars will become a much smaller percent of the commuting population. People will choose trains, bicycles, and small electric vehicles much more. This will hopefully bring down the current massive amounts of pollution that are occurring in all of the world’s major cities. Having a system of transport underground is a good way to reduce the throes of winter that affect people from walking to work. We may end up building layers on top of each other, causing a landscape that would be rather more expensive. Maintaining the structures would be a difficult task, so I think if this were to happen it would be on a smaller scale. Areas between buildings may get the covering treatment before streets do.

Science has a long way to go in the next century, and it has a good chance of causing our species to make some great leaps. I could be totally off on this whole thing though. Perhaps we don’t send people into space. Perhaps our cities get worse. Perhaps we prevent genetic research for fear that we are tampering with the work of God. Surely that would be much more depressing than a few accidental deaths on the way to a much improved society. Obviously nobody wants to glorify the mishaps, but avoiding progress altogether would be a much greater shame. Hopefully fifty years from now I will read this with a satisfied grin as I sip orange juice on a spaceship. 

Bio-hacking in the Home

I don’t know exactly how safe the idea of Bio-hacking is. By the looks of it, neither does the press. It would be nice to have a formal study done by regular qualified scientists to make sure that nothing from the bio-hacking community would warrant a ban.

I rather like the idea of bio-hacking. People are able to purchase equipment that is no longer going to be of use to the original lab for pennies on the dollar, and they make a few discoveries. It’s brilliant actually. I think that putting a much larger work force to the task of genetics could provide a lot of insight into the field. We may still need regulations though. Most formal professions have an official code of ethics, and it would be a good idea to have bio-hackers adhere to a set of statements preventing any damage from their work.

If there was a significant chance that a bio-hacker could accidentally produce a “super-bug” that would be resistant to the current medical treatment methods I would not want the process to continue. It is a risk that nobody needs to take. There is clearly a desire from many people to continue in this field, but they don’t wish to obtain formal degrees. Maybe too much of the information is tangential, and they feel alienated from their passion in a classroom environment. It doesn't matter, because they are already practicing this sort of thing. If it turns out to be safe it could provide a great middle class job that could be beneficial to biology in much the same way that moderately trained people were beneficial to the computer industry in the last century. Sure, many of the designers and people in charge were formally trained, but a lot of them weren't  They were able to provide for the industry without ever gaining a college degree. It remains to be seen if any enormous leaps in technology will be made because of the bio-hackers, but it is certainly worth keeping an eye on. They could make medical tests much cheaper, and advance our understanding of human genetics greatly over the next century. 

Amateur Science!

Zooniverse provided a very simple layout for some quick citizen science. I found it rather easy to start on some of the tasks. It was a learning curve that I feel could be overcome by many children especially if they were accompanied by an instructor. I feel like that would be a good way to collect data for this. There are a ton of galaxies in the universe, and if this was included as part of the education system, then there would be a much greater range of data out there. If every school made each student classify galaxies for an hour a year, one would think the data pool could improve significantly in just a few years.

Citizen science is one of the more obscure facets of science. The vast majority of what gets done in scientific experimentation is almost an insult to the intelligence of a scientist. They have to do very repetitive tasks, which may seem brilliant for just a few hours at a time, but for a 40 year career it would be quite draining. This is why I think that having citizens carry out some of the experimentation could be quite useful. A simple competency test may be required, as the people who are completing the data for projects such as galaxy zoo are anonymous people on the internet. It seems to me like a great way to reduce the cost of carrying out science and adding entry level jobs that aren't restaurant related to the economy. Sounds like a win-win.

In terms of adding to the scientific community citizens can be a great resource of time. Carrying out trials simultaneously and increasing the efficiency of the scientific machine could put science, and as a result society, on the fast track to a better future. It would help further science just by making it something that happens more quickly. It could be as significant in the improvement of science as the industrial revolution was to transport. Everything would happen in far less time. Cures for diseases wouldn't be drawn out over twenty years, and people would be able to contribute more to the curing of them than just jogging 5 kilometers.

It could help the general public simply by being a source of understanding. More people would learn about what scientists do. The public image of a scientist might change significantly, and we could end up with a much larger pool of people interested in joining the scientific community in more serious terms. It could also prevent people from injuring themselves in the following manner.

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Science fiction and Fantasy are the two genres that I will most often read if it is not for a class. I have about twenty books by Asimov alone. Early in the summer I reread Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and I even read his next book in that series. That pales in comparison to the amount of fantasy reading that I did over the summer. I read the entire available parts of the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. These books are currently being adapted to the show Game of Thrones airing on HBO, which comes with the necessary warning that the show is less than safe for children. They are some of the longest, most emotional books I have ever come across. He will kill off your favorite characters when you least expect it, so if you want a happy story with no tragedy you may want to steer clear. However, if you want brilliant character development, bawdy japes, and a deep examination of moral justifications this is the series for you.

Seriously, this is a really good show.

I find these two genres to have massive parallels. They are both written about worlds completely different from ours, yet the human concepts remain the same. These themes are what take these stories from interesting to captivating. Some of the stories from either genre have very little that is not believable. Not all fantasy has to have magic, and not all sci-fi has to have teleportation or faster than light travel. It is important to note that the quality of the story doesn't depend on the quantity of unreal happenings. Take the original Star Wars trilogy versus the new one. The new one depends on special effects, whereas the old one just used it as a device to help tell the story.

A grave error in judgment about special effects over strong character development.

Now which of the genres is preferable? I can’t answer that sadly. Everyone has different preferences on it. It’s easy to make a movie or television series in either genre, but making it good is the difficult part. We have numerous examples of cheesy science fiction movies from the mid to late twentieth century with disastrous special effects. They become the subject of Mystery Science Theater 3000 lampooning. Fantasy is a genre less explored. If you were a young boy in the sixties or seventies you would probably get a social pass if you liked spaceships, but not so much if you liked dwarves and orcs. Casual fans of both genres get a pass these days thanks to brilliant adaptations such as the Lord of the Rings movies, but the hardcore fans still garner some ridicule.

A preliminary photo from the Hobbit movie

I don’t think of fantasy as a genre that would ever command mutual exclusivity of fanbase over sci-fi. I also don't think there is a deep seeded need for escape from the throes of scientific monotony. It's just entertainment in the end. They are both stories that use different worlds as a tool for telling a story that perhaps couldn't be told in the modern world. Maybe it tackles a social issue that is not acceptable in modern society. Whatever the reason the effect remains constant. We are transported to a vastly different world where we find characters just as human as ourselves, even if they’re actually aliens or elves. 

The Future Was Wrong It Would Seem

The idea behind encasing bicycles in plastic was one for safety. If somebody could use a spray can and increase the rigidity of these devices at certain points, then they would feel much safer during their travels. Older bike structural failures were often the result of poor welding or decaying components. If you ride an old road bike it will have numerous problems with its drivetrain that could cause an accident. Brake cables and unoiled chains are subject to rust. Eventually without proper maintenance these components will reach a point of failure. A plastic coating isn’t really what made the bicycle safer. The use of alloys did a much better job of that. The majority of modern bicycles are made out of either aluminum or carbon fiber. People still look for a simple solution as one may have thought plastic would be in those days. The future of bicycles now is based on really finicky concepts such as a tiny increase in aerodynamic efficiency. They are aware of stress points on the bicycle and are able to cover those with stronger materials in order to prevent a break. This is why the chain stays and seat stays are incredibly thin compared to the down tube. On old steel bikes there is not much of a difference.

Replacing teeth with those donated by other people was spawned out of vanity, as so much of the products that people use today are. This prediction isn’t the method used, as I would know. I happen to be missing ten teeth genetically, so I have been put in a situation of understanding what sort of solutions there are these days. The solution that I will undergo in a few years is a false tooth implant. Quite the opposite of what was envisioned in 1966, I will have a titanium screw inserted into my jaw, and one month later they will place a tooth-like cap on it. These have been around for about 30 years, and they have shown no signs of significant wear for a person. I would have preferred that natural teeth would be in my skull, but this will sadly not be the case.

Photo courtesy of bloop

             

   Our culture is still safety and vanity obsessed. They will probably never move away from those concepts as untimely death is always a tragedy and people will always support products that are designed to make themselves look better/more normal. People will always remain optimistic about future advances though. Even now people are researching ways to genetically grow teeth so that a person could have their own teeth put into their head if one of them was defective or missing. This may or may not ever come to fruition, as only time will tell. Certain values may change over the years, but some concepts will remain as solid as they were centuries ago. These concepts vary from noble to greedy such as they values I chose for this post. Safety is for the benefit of all people and vanity is for the benefit of an individual. No matter the method, a whole list of ideas of improvement will more than likely always accompany such values. 

Science and Science Fiction

The buildings used in the 1939 World’s Fair were large geometric structures that would seem wildly impractical, but very aesthetically pleasing. Some buildings had no windows, while some others were made almost exclusively with windows. Much of the production was very shiny. That might lead people to be overly optimistic about the direction in which things were headed. The country was still recovering from a very difficult economic time.

The realism of the radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds was because it was very similar to any other broadcast that one might hear at the time. They would have musical interludes while news was being gathered. As they cut to the reporter at Princeton the audience has already assumed that this is just like any other evening. Why would it possibly be a hoax? They made the professor seem dubious of life on Mars, and that would be common of any scientist at the time. There wasn’t any evidence to support a life on Mars theory, so they probably would assume that there wasn’t any life. These “gas explosions” that they mention make it seem as if there were observable events that would be more convincing than just “we see some aliens.”

I’m sure that some people were given quite the shock by what was being broadcasted. There was no real sensationalism in the voices of the announcers at first, or at least no more than would be had from any other broadcast at the time. The excitement rose as it would if there were people reacting to it. In fact they used sound clips of small crowds acting shocked and angry at the events. 

The music that is added in at regular intervals feels very strange when you know it's a hoax, but if you didn't it would probably add very strong notes of realism.

Also the broadcasters were held to a slightly higher standard of giving the correct information to the public. Radio was a medium untouched by the hand of the hoaxer. The first time something fools people is much easier than the second.